Vista

observe

Emilia's POV

I made sure my eye was on everything she did. Except when she took her shower. Even when she was asleep, I would check on her a few times at night.

On school days, Ethan dropped us off and picked us up because we refused to take her car. Sometimes she got angry with me sticking around but I always stayed. We were enrolled in different academic programs but immediately or as soon as lectures were done, I would race to the door of her hall to wait for her. We had lunch with the girls, went to the library together, the restroom together, and sometimes I accompanied her to see the Dean.

One very casual day during our free period, we were strolling in the school hallway. We took a bend to take us upstairs. Elsa kept talking about a facial product she bought and how it made her look smooth, all the while looking at her skin and caressing it. Few steps after we took that bend, I spotted a huge figure with a black hoodie, talking to a very petite blonde and leaning on a locker. His very white dentals made me widen my eyes and as soon as I saw him, I flipped Elsa round by her shoulders.

"What's happening?"

I held her shoulder with one hand to keep her moving and the other to stop her from turning to see why we walked back.

"I forgot to say that we shouldn't use this road."

Unfortunately for me, I was shorter than her so I couldn't hold on until we were completely far from the bend. She struggled with looking at what was behind us until we both fell to the ground, with her on me.

"Ouch."

"Em? You okay?"

"Yeah. Sorry," I rubbed the back of my head.

She rolled her eyes. "This thing you're doing with me isn't working."

She walked away. I tried following her.

"El! Wait, please."

"No, Em. I'm tired of you treating me like I'm a child. It disgusts me."

Then she walked away again. This time, I didn't follow her. I walked back to class.

When I reached home, I found Ethan laying lazily on the couch. I dropped by bag on the study table in the sitting room.

"Hey. Back already? You didn't call me to pick you up."

I walked to the bedroom. He followed me.

"What's wrong? Where's Elsa?"

"Wherever she went."

"What do you mean? The plan was to keep 8 eyes on her."

"Yeah now there's just 4, okay? I can't do this anymore!"

"I'm sorry, Em. Whatever it is that you went through, I know how hard it was," he was approaching me at the other end of the room, "but Elsa's our friend. We can't leave her when she needs us the most."

I took his hand and led him to the couch in the living room. Before I could utter a word, someone buzzed. On the other side was Tony.

Knowing why he came over, we sat in silence. Then I explained what happened.

"Where's she?"

"In the flat. In bed. Dazed."

"It's hard to keep an eye on her. She takes her decisions and wants nobody to take them with her."

"I knew that if I told her about who I saw, she would be suspended for the scenes she would cause."

Tony looked rather angry. Not angry because of what I said, but angry because he came over. Because he kept looking around.

"I'm going to bring her back. And I'll make sure she stays till the time she's supposed to."

"You sure man?"

"I am."

With that, he left.

Ethan held me closer and stroke my arm. "I'm sure you didn't sprain a bone?"

I shook my head. Then he smiled. "You're the strongest girl I know. I'm so proud of you."

"Something Dad would say when I topped the class."

The thought made me think of my parents in Brussels. I held him tighter. "Adulthood is hard."

"Yeah, I know. Making the right decision is even harder. Like the moment I knew I loved you and was making the decision of asking you to be my girlfriend."

I looked at him. He wasn't smiling. Instead, he had a light frown. Then he looked at me and scoffed. "Like the moment you told me you were going to think about it. I knew that was so hard for you."

He was right. It was one of the hardest decisions I've made in my life. Choosing to stay with him was even harder after everything that was going on with my family not wanting me to date and his family going through big challenges.

He dug his fingers in my hair and stroke my scalp. It was soothing and I felt like falling asleep in his arms.

"You should eat something."

"Tired."

"I'll make you ramen."

"You will? For me?"

"Yeah. For you." He rose.

I picked up my bag from the table and changed into my PJs. I needed to complete some tasks so I tried to do them while he cooked.

In the meantime, someone rang the buzzer again. This time, it was Elsa.

"Can I come in?"

"Sure you can."

She pulled me to the couch. "Look Em, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to say all those things I said to you. I was just fed up."

"Of course you were, El. And honestly, I'm tired of trying to observe you. But when I think about how dear you are to me and how I cannot lose you, I keep going. I'm sorry too. I should've told you."

"I don't think you should have. I would've shed blood if I saw him."

I nodded in understanding.

"But honestly, Ethan and I should've told you why we're doing the observation. We've been praying for you for a week and things don't seem right. We asked for help from Mum and they told us to observe you. That's actually why we're doing all this. Ethan has been having some strange feelings and all roads seem to lead to you."

She sighed. "Actually I'm under pressure. I've been long before I gave my life to Christ."

"Does this have anything to do with the serial killer stuff you spoke of?"

Her eyes widened. "No, no. Not at all. Wait, how'd you know about that?"

"You mentioned them a lot in your slangs at the time. Didn't know what that meant but well," I shrugged.

"Whatever it is you're going through, we want to be there," I squeezed her hand. "We're here and will always be. Ouch," Ethan was hitting a fork against a large silver platter.

"Dinner's set!"

Elsa laughed. "Holy chef!"

"Thou mayest come in the sanctuary of thine noodles and eggs." I rolled my eyes.

After we finished eating, we prayed. We prayed about a lot of things. Elsa gave us different topics about her life to pray for. However, I still didn't feel very convinced because somehow, she didn't say everything.

Now that she was well aware of why we were observing her, she did her best with listening to whatever we asked her to do. Since then, we'd never seen Billy again.